1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to controlled devices which may act, move and talk in response to control signals recorded on two presently unused channels on video tapes and transmitted to the devices by radio.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Radio controlled devices include many examples such as garage door openers, drones used for antiaircraft target practice, etc. Toys such as Teddy Ruxpin can move and sing independently in response to signals from an audio tape inserted into Teddy. The combination of the prior art is at present relatively unsophisticated, as shown by Teddy's nose dive in sales after a promising start.
"Little Mermaid" was a fairly good movie, grossing over $100,000,000.00. It was not a great movie in attendance, but merchandizing is another matter. Its gross in merchandizing was more than one billion dollars, which dwarfs the profits from those people who saw it in theaters. This gross, in turn, can be dwarfed by a future movie which plays on a casset with the main characters dancing and singing and acting out the movie in front of children. This would be a delight for children.
What is needed, or at least desired, but not taught by the prior art is a system to use current state of the art tapes and add the necessary signals to the master which will then at no additional substantial cost make retail tapes which can be sold and used as at present and are compatible with present playback machines, called VCR's. An attachment between the VCR and TV would detect the additional signal and transmit it by low powered radio signal. In the same room would be one or more toys. As the movie played on the tape, the toys, which could be characters in the movie, would act, sing, and otherwise interact with the movie. Toys might be sold or rented with tapes. Toys could be controlled in other ways to do other things.
The same invention could administer selected control in other ways, such as voice activated controls for disabled people. The disabled person could enable a selected tape or other digital device by voice and then control and interact by voice as the device generated selected signals.